Half my Corals are Closed

[thomas_neil]

I've always been around 11-12dkh with coral pro with salinity of 35ppt.

Hes a link to their site saying it has a dkh of 12.

Coral Pro Salt | Premium grade, high Alkalinity - Red Sea

Coral Pro reef salt enhances coral growth up to 4 times their natural rate. Its alkalinity of 12 dKH makes it ideal for mixed reefs.

www.redseafish.com

Ill test it tonight when I make the water for tomorrows water change.

 

[MrGisonni]

I use 3.5 ml of AFR daily in my heavily stocked 30 gallon mostly LPS reef. My alk is 9-9.5. If my alk was at 12.8 things would not be happy. Been there done that. Natural seawater is 7-8 DkH. Try a different salt mix and turned in your AFR slowly. Find the sweet spot and keep it stable with nutrients and dosing.

 

[thomas_neil]

I use 3.5 ml of AFR daily in my heavily stocked 30 gallon mostly LPS reef. My alk is 9-9.5. If my alk was at 12.8 things would not be happy. Been there done that. Natural seawater is 7-8 DkH. Try a different salt mix and turned in your AFR slowly. Find the sweet spot and keep it stable with nutrients and dosing.

Yeah the nano has been a learning curve. I've been trying to do what's worked on my 75 but everything is way different on it. I've turned off the doser and ill order new salt once I'm out of the coral pro. Might buy some reef crystals to mix with it to try and get alk down and dose calcium and mag to new water to get it to better levels.

Im not running a skimmer so I'll need to find a dif way to get phosphate down.

 

[Uncle99]

I did just move everything from the frag rack I had them on when I first got them to the scape about 2 weeks ago, they seemed fine with the move and where open the day after.

I thought it could have been from that but couldn't figure out why they were happy then closed up.

If you moved them, things have changed.
It will take time for them to readjust their processes to the modified conditions.
I’d just leave them only for some time.
Duncan’s, indestructible but sulk like a baby when moved.
High light, low light they will adjust.
These guys were unhappy for 3 weeks, then, just opened.

 

[thomas_neil]

Did a 20% water change on Saturday, got alk down to 11.3, it was 11dkh on the new salt mix, calcium was 410, mag was 1440 nitrate was 2.5 and phosphate was still .41. I dosed .7ml of the brightwell phos E to try and get it down a little. I'll check parameters again on my lunch break to make sure everything is stable and see if phosphates went down at all.

Ill test all again on Wednesday as well and see what changes from Saturday to today and Saturday to Wednesday there is and see how much/if I need to dose all for reef.

I don't want to be chasing numbers, been there done that. I want to find where the tank is stable and still have everything happy.

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[thomas_neil]

I think I found my main problem with my Duncan. My blenny just perches on him all day so he wont open. Any tricks I can use to keep him off of the duncan?

 

[Sharkbait19]

I think I found my main problem with my Duncan. My blenny just perches on him all day so he wont open. Any tricks I can use to keep him off of the duncan?

You can try moving the Duncan - otherwise try making a cave it likes better.

 

[thomas_neil]

You can try moving the Duncan - otherwise try making a cave it likes better.

Anywhere you recommend moving it to? He likes to perch in the 3 highlighted areas.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Anywhere that’s medium light and flow should be good - they aren’t too picky about location.

 

[thomas_neil]

Little update:
Ive stopped dosing, did a 10% water change Saturday, added 4 Tbs of GFO in with my carbon bag, and dosed .7ml phos-e.
Saturdays parameters:
Alk 11.2 Hanna checker
Cal. 400 - dosed to bring up to 420 Salifurt
Mag 1440 Salifurt
Nitrate 2.5 Salifurt
Phos .41 Hanna Checker

Todays parameters
Alk 10
Calcium is 400 - dosed calcium again
Mag 1410
Nitrate 5-10
Phos .18

Seems like my Alk and Calcium uptake are about the same, I've only hand dosed calcium to keep it in the sweet spot.

Think I should start dosing a small amount of all for reef again or wait another week or so to see how uptake is after a full week.

On a side note anyone use the hanna mag and nitrate testers? Hoping my wife gets me them for Christmas to make checking those quicker.

 

[thomas_neil]

I think I may need to order an ICP test. Either somethings off with my water or I have incorrect flow and lighting for some of these corals. I switched to blue bucket and that solved my high ALK issues. I noticed though that I need to dose calcium to the new water before a water change, idk if it's just an off bucket or what but it seems to mix to 300ppm calcium.

Anyways I did a water change Friday and tested parameters as follows:
ALK 8.7
Calcium 430
Mag 1440
PO4 .07
NO3 2.9

Todays are:
ALK 7.8
Cal 400
Mag 1430
PO4 0.9
NO3 3.8


I'll bring in new GFO tomorrow since its starting to go up again, was pretty steady at .07 for a couple weeks.

I turned on my doser as well and started with 1.2ml All for reef and l'll see if that keeps what I have now stable when I check again Thursday.

The Duncan, torch, one of the acans, and one pipe organ are still pretty unhappy. I'm considering moving them around in the tank Friday to see if I can find a better spot.

 

[thomas_neil]

So I’m still having some trouble with my Duncan, torch, and hammer ( don’t mind the hair algae in the background, trying to keep it to just that frag plug)

current parameters are:
Alk 8.7
Cal 400
Mag 1380
PO4 .07
NO3 17

These have been pretty stable for the last 1-2 months.

I’ve tried moving them to different areas to get different light. I’ve played around with my light setting a little bit and I’ve adjusted my flow. I usually give the corals about 2 weeks between changes before i change them again.

Any recommendations?